Foreign Ministers Discuss Nagorno-Karabakh

Azerbaijani soldiers on the border of Nagrno-Karabakh (file photo)
24 August 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Russia's Foreign Ministry says that the foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan met in Moscow today to discuss the dispute over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh territory.

The ministry says the ministers were joined by representatives of the United States and France to negotiate ways of settling the conflict.

Azerbaijan's foreign minister said preparations were made for a meeting between Armenian President Robert Kocharian and his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, on the dispute. That meeting is scheduled to be held later this week in Kazan.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly ethnic Armenian enclave, broke away from Soviet Azerbaijan in 1988, sparking a war in which some 35,000 people were killed.

In 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a cease-fire, but they remain technically at war over the territory.